People sure did crazy things back then. But lip plates, and neck rings, and corsets, and large 19th. skirts, and whigs, and penile mutilation of new borns, is loopy as well.

As for aliens:

Given 500Billion planets in our galaxy, 1/10 capable of supporting life = 50B;
of those 1/10 have life = 5B;
1/5 have insects, fish, birds, animals = 1B;
1/4 have higher forms of life such as mammals and hominids, = 250m;
of those hominids(or other species) 1/10 evolved intelligence = 25m;

So, we have 5million alien species in the galaxy that could or might or have or will contact Earth. Is 5m spread out in the entire galaxy enough to have a dialogue or contact or visitations or invasions? No. Not enough spread or odds.
Ifcourse, of those if some species (say 1/100) has a population of 100B, and has lasted 10m years, and has spread all over the galaxy, thus... there are 50,000 super intelligent alien species in the galaxy.

50 species in the galaxy are capable of inter-stellar space flight in their life span. It's just a question if such God-like aliens already do exist, and have existed for millions of years, or if humans are the most advanced species in the galaxy.